"If
police
started
shutting
down
suppliers...that terrifies the hell out of me.
You try and find back up, but you really
haven't got it.
"I know I'd go back to a very dark place —
and I think a lot of people would."
Suzette's doctor also told her it wasn't worth
putting in a request for legal medicinal
cannabis. "He just gave me a look and said it
wasn't worth it unless I was paraplegic or
terminally ill ... He actually recommended
looking for a compassionate supplier."
Steven distrusts the government's plans for
medicinal cannabis accessibility, which is not
uncommon among medicinal cannabis users
— even those who access it legally.
One of his compassionate suppliers has
already stopped producing after police raids.
Steven worries he and his brother would have
to return to a neurosurgeon who, before
medicinal cannabis, told them that surgery
was the only option. "If my brother gets the
surgery, he's basically dead, or he'll be in a
wheelchair," he said.
Growers and compassionate suppliers told
BuzzFeed News they service hundreds of
people with the drug, in oil or herb form.
Most of the access is either very cheap or in
many cases free.
"We are not included," Gold Coast patient
Jayde told BuzzFeed News. "They make all of
these decisions – governments and politicians
and health experts – and they don't ask us, the
patients, what we need.
Elsewhere, in NSW Steven sources medicinal
cannabis for his brother, who has a genetic
condition resulting in tumours growing on
vital organs. He says he wouldn't access
medicinal cannabis legally even if it was
available to him, largely due to price and
quality: "A month's supply ... would cost two
to three times as much if I had it legally.
Legally, it would probably be synthetic, too."
"The government is telling people that it's
legal, that they can access it, when it's not and
they can't.
"We have been doing this for years — before
anyone was even talking about it. But I'm a
criminal for using something that has changed
my life and that I can't even access legally if I
tried."
*All surnames have been withheld for privacy
reasons.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/oz-
cannabis-iii?utm_term=.wp54337wd#.ra9mdd3bX